[See below for videos of public comments provided to Cleveland City Council in support of decriminalization of fare evasion]
CPT members make public comment for fare decriminalization at weekly Cleveland City Council meetings. Images from: Public Comment CLE.
Clevelanders for Public Transit is pleased that Cleveland City Council will introduce legislation tonight to amend Cleveland Codified Ordinance 605.11 Misconduct Involving a Public Transportation System to ensure that any person convicted under that ordinance for fare evasion will face a maximum of a $25 fine with no possibility of jail time. However, it does not go far enough.
Under the proposed legislation, not paying a fare remains a crime and that remains unjust. While people could no longer be thrown in jail for failing to pay for a transit fare, they still face the possibility of exorbitant court costs and other collateral consequences of a criminal conviction.
Eating food or drinking a beverage in a prohibited place remain crimes under this proposed legislation. Listening to music without headphones remains a crime. Attempting fare evasion remains a crime. Throwing a snowball remains a crime that can land a person in jail for 90 days and a $750 fine. None of these acts should be considered crimes etched permanently on someone’s record.
Under the current law, people can be jailed for 30 days and fined $250 for failure to pay a $2.50 transit fare. That is unjust. Just as no person would ever expect to go to jail over a parking ticket, no person should ever go to jail over a $2.50 fare or because they forgot their monthly pass at home.
The same penalty applies under East Cleveland Ordinance 509.08 and throughout Ohio under R.C. 2917.41.
Since the beginning of 2022, CPT members and friends have made public comments at weekly Cleveland City Council meetings to demand the body finally act.
On April 18, 2022, Robin Goist said:
“As you know under the current fare evasion law, a bus ticket that costs $2.50 runs someone the risk of 30 days in jail and a $250 dollar fine. Meanwhile, for those of us who are privileged enough to have access to a personal vehicle, the equivalent of that, a parking ticket, no one would ever conceive of throwing someone in jail for a parking ticket. That inconsistency itself is unjust.”
CPT has called for the decriminalization of the non-payment of fares since 2018. The legislation being introduced tonight fails to do that. The proposed legislation does, however, ensure that any person convicted under it will face a maximum of a $25 fine with no possibility of jail time, and CPT applauds this.
Yet because the penalty under the Ohio statute remains, a person cited for fare evasion in Cleveland, by Greater Cleveland Transit Authority (GCRTA) Transit Police would still be subject to jail and a $250 fine under state law. Therefore, CPT demands GCRTA Transit Police agree, under a memorandum of understanding with the City of Cleveland, to only cite riders under the amended Cleveland ordinance.
Although transit riders would no longer risk jail time if they cannot afford their fare, they still risk the collateral consequences of a criminal conviction. This must not be the case. Indeed, in 2019, when Councilor Kerry McCormack first drafted similar legislation, it protected against the collateral consequences of a criminal conviction by, for example, suspending court costs and ensuring a conviction under the ordinance would not need to be reported on a job application. Being fined $25 instead of $250 means little if it results in thousands of dollars in court costs, along with a criminal record that can prevent someone from getting a job.
While CPT applauds Cleveland City Council for ensuring its laws do not send anyone to jail because they are too poor to pay a transit fare, the proposed legislation does not go far enough. It does not protect against the collateral consequences of a criminal conviction. It does not decriminalize several other trivial behaviors. And, until O.R.C. 2917.41 is repealed, the City of Cleveland must ensure GCRTA Transit Police issue no citations under that state law.
###
Clevelanders for Public Transit is a riders’ organization that builds power for affordable, accessible and equitable public transit in Northeast Ohio. CPT released the Fair Fares policy platform in 2018 calling for fare decriminalization. CPT’s new platform, Ending the Transit Death Spiral, was released last year. For more information, visit clefortransit.org
Public Comment Videos from CPT members and friends:
Over the course of nearly four months, Clevelanders for Public Transit has organized transit riders to demand Cleveland City Council decriminalize fare evasion.
January 24, 2022 – Ross DiBello (Cleveland, Ward 17):
“RTA is currently in the process of introducing civilian fare enforcement personnel because the agency recognizes that fare evasion should not be a crime. Cleveland should timely amend its law to do the same if we want to be humanitarian.”
January 31, 2022 – Mark Schumann (Cleveland, Ward 3):
“The decriminalization of transit fare evasion is a social justice issue. It is a class and poverty issue. It is in some ways a racial justice issue which we just declared to be a public health crisis. So I’m here to say this council should be taking a stand to support all local and statewide efforts to decriminalize fare evasions.”
February 7, 2022 – Chris Stocking (Cleveland, Ward 15):
Chris explained the criminalizing non-payment of a transit fare originated from the broken windows theory of policing. He said, “Debates about broken windows policing ignored the two problems at the root. We got broken windows instead of dealing with abandoned property. Clevelanders who have themselves been abandoned by the housing crisis leading to unemployment, homelessness, substance abuse, and mental illness. Broken windows policing neglects these root causes.”
February 14, 2022 – Chris Martin (Cleveland, Ward 3):
For Valentine’s Day, Chris read a poem to city council “here in Cleveland the nation’s poorest big city, there are many that don’t have two dollars fifty. You can call their lack of fare a fail, but you cannot in good conscience say it should land them in jail. Though that’s exactly what you have done, under ordinance 605:11.”
February 25, 2022 – Michael Harney provided written testimony:
“Currently, boarding public transit without paying fare can result in fines up to $250 and up to 30 days in jail. I request City Council to think deeply about what purpose this response to fare evasion is serving. A person who cannot afford $2.50 for fare will likely be unable to pay a fine ten times as much, and a jail sentence of any length does not match up with such a minor infraction. Leaving fare evasion as a criminal offense ultimately does nothing but further burden the impacted individuals, who are overwhelmingly poor and/or people of color, with the legal and social stigma of a criminal record, which will follow them for years to come, if not the rest of their lives. Is it fair and just for someone to be potentially shut out of housing, educational, and employment opportunities just because they could not afford to pay $2.50? A person in that situation needs help rather than punishment. It’s time for Cleveland to reassert itself as a great city and move towards decriminalizing fare evasion.”
February 28, 2022 – Chris Martin read a comment on behalf of La Queta Worley-Bell (E. Cleveland):
Keeta wanted Cleveland City Council to know how she felt when an armed police officer asked to see her transit pass. “One day I was at the West 25th rapid station walking toward the elevator when an armed police officer approached me, rudely asking for my pass. My hands were full because I had just gone shopping. So I started to put my bags down to get my pass. The police officer was very rude and inappropriate and it made me feel very angry.”
February 28, 2022 – Diane Howard (Cleveland, Ward 3):
Diane related to the city council an illustrative story of how criminalizing fare evasion is unjust. In 2017, Diane’s granddaughter “was on a HealthLine. She didn’t have, couldn’t find her bus pass. She got arrested. She called someone to come and get her children. She had five children. I have 39 great-grandchildren. Anyway she got arrested because she didn’t have her bus pass by the RTA police.”
March 7, 2022 – Joe Schwarten (Cleveland, Ward 5):
Joe pointed out it’s been years that CPT has been advocating for this issue. “So for three years we’ve actually had legislation written up to be passed for this and you wouldn’t expect to be, you know, thrown in jail for a parking ticket or a simple speeding ticket, which can actually harm other people.”
March 14, 2022 – Ayat Amin (Cleveland, Ward 3):
Ayat explained even the police officers guarding the front door to City Hall couldn’t believe not paying for a $2.50 bus pass was a crime. “[A]s I was checking in with security, they asked me what are you coming in to talk about today? And I said decriminalizing fare evasion. And they’re like what’s that? And I said well did you know that if you take the bus and you somehow don’t pay your $2.50 fare, you can get a $250 fine and spend 30 days in jail? And they’re like that does not seem fair at all and I’m like exactly that is 100 percent why I’m here.”
March 28, 2022 – Adam Bresnehan: (Cleveland, Ward 11):
“Council members, last summer I moved to Cleveland from Berlin. In Berlin non-payment of fare is not a criminal offense. In fact it’s not even a civic offense. Rather it results in a fine that is levied and paid to Berlin’s public transit corporation the BVG, their equivalent of our RTA. Berlin is a city with a world-class public transit system. How can it be that the RTA needs to criminalize non-payment of fare while the system like the BVG doesn’t need it? What purpose does criminalization of non-payment have because it clearly doesn’t have any impact on the quality of service?”
April 4, 2022 – Loh (Cleveland, Ward 7):
“Come on, let’s think about when we were little. Who remembers to bring homework every day to the teachers? You don’t. So that means CMSD students even if they use the ID card as their ID to get on the bus, if they change the book back they forgot to move the ID. They will be caught and they can be put on discharge from this particular ordinance for them to carry a criminal record when they are even just a kid in school.”
April 4, 2022 – Michael Harney provided written testimony:
“In 2020, City Council voted to declare racism a public health crisis. I want to bring to City Council’s attention that the way our city handles fare evasion right now is an example of the systemic racism that we need to work against, as it disproportionately impacts black and brown residents. Arrests, fines, and jail time are not the answer. Dropping fare evasion as a criminal offense is one big step towards addressing the crisis of racism in our city.”
April 11, 2022 – Margaret Mahoney (Cleveland, Ward 3):
“About two months ago I went to buy a bus pass at the red line stop at West 25th. Both fare machines were out of order. This is not an uncommon occurrence. If someone didn’t have exact change or a phone or if their phone was dead, they wouldn’t even be able to buy a pass until they got off the train. No one should potentially go to jail for stepping onto the next bus or train when they fully expected to pay but weren’t able to. Really no one should go to jail for a $2.50 ticket.”
April 18, 2022 – Anastazia Vanisko (Cleveland, Ward 14):
“[I]n the summer of 2016, I was riding the health line back home after work. At the stop at East 79th and Euclid, the bus was boarded by transit police who proceeded to check almost everyone’s bus tickets. I say almost everyone because um out of a bus that was packed with people on the commute back home from work, I was one of, I was the only person who didn’t get my ticket checked, and I was also one of only two white people on this bus. And when I looked at the officers getting off the bus, I saw that there was a group of people near them that they looked like they were guarding who was almost entirely elderly black folks. So it’s people my grandfather’s age or older that had been removed from the bus and were now at risk of 30 days in jail or a $250 dollar fine for not buying a bus ticket, and that’s just not right.”
April 18, 2022 – Robin Goist (Cleveland, Ward 7):
“What kind of a legal system financially punishes people for being poor? What kind of justice system throws people in jail, weaponizes their poverty against them for the crime of being poor and needing to get from place to place? What consequences does that have for individuals, for teenagers with their whole lives ahead of them? What consequences does that have generationally in a city and county that have declared racism a public health crisis?”